The Beast of the Camargue

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  He raised his hand.

  “Who cares if you put the shits up that fucker Morini? But for two magistrates who specialize in organized crime to try to pin the death of good old Lopez on you—that I can’t abide. So I need your version of the truth. And it had better be truer than that of our learned friends. Message received?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  De Palma knew that Lamastre was extremely rigorous, absolutely honest and quite ready to stick his neck out for his men. So he had to play it straight while also hiding both his strengths and his weaknesses. Otherwise, the trap might close on him for good.

  “This customer’s statement is a tissue of lies,” he said.

  “That’s not what I want to hear, Michel.”

  “Between you and me, boss, this is pure perjury. But, O.K., I’ll tell you everything.”

  He started at the beginning: the meeting with Mme. Steinert, the shot in the dark … He also mentioned the grass who had put him on the track of Morini.

  Lamastre listened, still clutching his badge.

  “You’re in it up to your neck,” he said. “You know what being charged means for a police officer?”

  “I know, Chief.”

  The Controller General threw his badge down on a file marked “De Palma.”

  “As far as I’m concerned—I mean the Marseille P.J.—I’m going to give you a clean slate. When do you start work again?”

  “Next Monday.”

  “O.K., let’s say that de Palma’s great return is going to be postponed slightly. Get yourself another month or so of sick leave. Time enough to let things run their course. We’ll see how things stand when autumn comes. And I’m going to visit your friend the prefect later today.”

  “Say hello from me.”

  “It’s lucky for you that you’ve been friends these twenty years.”

  “We go back to our days on the Brigade Criminelle.”

  “I know, I know, the pests in Paris. There’s more to life than Maigret, you know.”

  “He was a young Commissaire at the time.”

  “Stop, you’re bringing tears to my eyes.”

  Lamastre poured out two more shots of Jim Beam.

  “So, Steinert you say?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “That case stinks, don’t you think?”

  “It isn’t a case. I mean, everything possible has been done to turn it cold.”

  “Yes, I heard they’d decided he drowned.”

  “It was a murder. As sure as two and two make four. And someone big was behind it: property deals and so forth!”

  “I’m ready to believe you, but it won’t wash. People are judged on the facts, not on intellectual constructions.”

  Lamastre knocked his glass back in one and grimaced as he felt the burn go down.

  “There are hundreds of poor bastards who get murdered and are put down as suicides. Do you know why?”

  The Baron shrugged and picked up the F.B.I. badge.

  “Because there’s a two-gear justice—everyone knows that. And a two-gear police system. A D.N.A. test costs between 300 and 800 euros, do you follow me, de Palma?”

  “Of course …”

  “I know, I’m stating the blindingly obvious …”

  He poured himself another shot.

  “And I advise you to lay off the Steinert case during the month on sick leave you’re going to take.”

  When he emerged into the courtyard of police headquarters, de Palma tried in vain to contact Marceau on his mobile. So instead he telephoned the commissariat, only to be told that his old colleague had gone on holiday abroad two days before.

  The Baron was about to pull away in Maistre’s 205, when Romero’s head appeared at the window.

  “Good day, boss. How are things?”

  “I’ve just seen Lamastre. He’d rather I stayed ill for a while.”

  “No surprise there. You’re much talked of right now, and not all of it good!”

  “That’s nothing new.”

  “Things are drifting up to the surface.”

  “Who cares?”

  Romero stuck his head into the car.

  “I went to see Maistre yesterday. As we got nothing out of Lornec, we took a little trip to the Belle de Mai to see what we could find out about those old hold-ups.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Not much. But there’s one thing of interest. At the time, it was Marceau who was in charge of the investigation. You should give him a call.”

  “That’s right. He was on the B.R.B.* at the time. I should have thought of that. The snag is that he’s on leave right now. The bugger’s abroad and no one knows where. We’ll have to wait for the end of August.”

  “Shit, that’s a shame.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. Anyway, nothing is panning out at the moment.”

  “Anne’s here. Do you want to speak to her?”

  “No, my lad. I feel as though I stink of something dead right now.”

  “Come on, Michel, forget it!”

  “You don’t know them. They’re as jealous as divas.”

  “Whatever. Let’s try and get together as soon as possible. O.K.?”

  “No problem. See you around.”

  The Canadair banked over the summits of the Alpilles before swooping toward the Downlands, barely thirty meters above the ground.

  With tears in his eyes, Bérard watched it fly in line with the lavender fields, which were half hidden by the black smoke. Madame Steinert had taken the old shepherd by the arm because he could not keep still.

  Once past the Route de Maussane, the Canadair dropped its tons of water over the burning torches of resin and oak, before vanishing into the blue sky smeared with black.

  “M. Bérard, you can’t stay here. The firemen are telling us to leave.”

  The old man did not move. He murmured something inaudible, like an incantation, as he watched the inferno advance on a turret of limestone.

  A quartermaster of the Marseille fire brigade shouted above the tumult and the cracking of tree trunks torn apart by the flames.

  “You can’t stay here,” he called, unrolling a hosepipe. “Move away! This is no place for you.”

  Madame Steinert guided the shepherd to the other side of the road. The wind drove the smoke toward them. In a swirl of fury, everything grew dark and sparks danced in the scorched air. She took him by the shoulder and led him toward her car. It was at that moment that she saw de Palma emerge from behind a fire engine.

  “You’ve got to go,” he said. “Get into the car, M. Bérard, you’ll make yourself ill. The air is toxic.”

  The Baron motioned to Ingrid to take the driver’s side, then he sat Bérard down in the passenger seat. The old boy was like a puppet. He no longer reacted to what was going on around him.

  The Baron sat in the rear of the Mercedes 4×4, and they drove off toward Eygalières. The firemen had set up their command post in front of Morini’s house and were fighting the blaze just a hundred meters away from the façade.

  “Let’s take M. Bérard home.”

  She nodded and overtook a Maussane firemen’s ambulance.

  “Where is your flock, M. Bérard?”

  The old man did not reply. De Palma saw that he was crying, his eyes wide with terror.

  When they arrived in the courtyard of Les Fontaines, Matelot the sheepdog didn’t move. De Palma realized that something terrible had happened before or during the fire. He motioned to Ingrid to stay in the car.

  “Drive off as soon as I’m out.”

  Ingrid had her hands clamped on the wheel. Bérard was staring ahead, as though what was happening no longer touched him.

  The Baron threw himself out of the car and ran over to the dog’s kennel, his Bodyguard drawn. Ingrid pulled away at once.

  Matelot had been shot in the head. His skull had exploded, scattering brain matter all over the kennel.

  De Palma went into the barn and listened. He heard the Mercedes leave
the farmhouse turning and head toward Eygalières. Then there was silence.

  Les Fontaines was in a state of stunned suspense. Flies were buzzing around in the heavy air. The sheep were gone. The gate of their pen was wide open. On the ground, the straw had been disturbed and scattered over the yard. It made a long yellow track that led toward the fields. The herd had been stampeded. Behind a manger, a lamb was breathing feebly, its back broken when the herd had trampled over it in panic.

  He pushed open the front door of the house and pointed his gun inside. He smelled the old man’s odor, newly mingled with the smell of wood ash that clung to the ancient furnishings. The overwhelming stillness had something disturbing about it. The only sign of life was the ticking of the clock.

  He walked slowly inside, still on his guard.

  The pantry door was open and a tin of biscuits had been spilled over the floor. Beside it lay some papers which looked like bills and a few carefully folded ten-euro notes.

  The Baron glanced into the cupboard. It contained three shelves. The top one contained a line of bottles of liqueur and empty jars. Beneath it, a pile of dishcloths had been ransacked, leaving an empty space beside it; presumably where the tin had been. On the bottom shelf there were some cans and bars of chocolate, which had also been turned over.

  He went all around the room then headed for the only door, which was in the far wall. It was closed. He turned the handle but could not open it. It was either locked or jammed. He tried again, and gave it an angry kick, but it wouldn’t budge. He realized that it must be locked from the inside.

  A meow broke the silence. A cat appeared in the front doorway, no doubt the only surviving witness of the terrible scene that had played out in the farm.

  The big clock chimed six p.m. Outside, the air smelled scorched. The wind had risen and was blowing the smell of the fire toward Les Fontaines.

  The Baron was about to leave when he heard the sound of a body hitting the ground. He just had time to duck when two gunshots rang out. A window shattered. Then there was a sound of rapid steps. A man was running toward the far side of the buildings. The Baron stood up and took aim.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion. He fired once and saw the .38 bullet hit the ground. When the man turned round, he corrected his aim and pressed the trigger. The shot hit the man in the left leg; he made to fire back but the Baron put a second round into the same place.

  The man fired once, and then again. The Baron just had time to duck before another window blew apart. When he stood back up, the man had vanished. De Palma ran out after him.

  He stopped dead when he heard a powerful motorbike roar away on the dirt path.

  The farm was still vibrating from the shots and there was a reek of burned powder. Most of the sheep had taken shelter in the field just behind the barn, a few more were lingering in the garden.

  De Palma went back to the dining room. The lock on the door that led to the bedrooms was an old model, easy to open. In the farm’s stock of tools he found a length of thick wire and fixed up a makeshift key. Thirty seconds later, the lock gave way.

  The walls of the shepherd’s bedroom were covered in a faded yellow wallpaper dotted with pale blue and pink flowers. To the right of the window, a huge wardrobe occupied all of the space; to the left was a single chair, with a black suit jacket draped over its back. The brown walnut bed was covered with a thick eiderdown and a hand-knitted bedcover.

  He opened the wardrobe. On the upper shelf, there were some piles of ironed shirts and below that some carefully folded black corduroy trousers. An old hunting rifle lay in front of the pair of trousers. He opened the breach. It was loaded with two Tunet double zero cartridges.

  The rest of the room told him nothing. There was a Christ made of yellow metal mounted on ebony on one of the walls, and a dried olive branch nailed up above the bedstead.

  At the far end, a door led to another connecting room. When he opened it, it felt as though something invisible had been released, as if an impalpable form passed by him and fled outside.

  There were a few dusty sticks of furniture and some old photographs hung on the walls: sepia portraits of past generations; a group of people in a glass-fronted frame; a papier-mâché Tarasque with a man in a costume like a musketeer’s, with knee breeches, buckled shoes, frilly shirt and broad hat. It was Bérard, posing beside the monster as a Knight of the Tarasque. Other knights were standing behind him.

  To the left of the beast stood several officials, no doubt from the Tarascon town hall, and two taller men in Nazi uniforms.

  The Baron remembered what Bérard had told him about the Resistance and the protection old Steinert had given him. He took the photograph down and turned it over. Behind it, Bérard had written in a fine hand: Festival of the Tarasque, 1942.

  He hung it back up, then looked around the room. He saw at once that it had been ransacked. The chest of drawers had been searched. There were two dog-eared breviaries, a copy of the Provençal edition of Frédéric Mistral’s Mireio, a Trésor du Félibrige and a few books by Roumanille and Daudet. As he closed one of the drawers, his foot struck some object. He bent down and picked up an ancient tome from the floor: Agrippa’s La philosophie occulte ou la magie. The preface stated that this edition dated from 1911, but that the text had been written in 1540. It was a work for an initiate.

  He sat on the bed and thought for a moment. Someone had come to search the place and had been disturbed. What had he been looking for? A book about magic?

  De Palma reconstructed the scenario: on seeing him arrive, the man had locked the door leading to the bedrooms and had escaped through the rear window, which was not very high. So he probably had not had enough time to find what he had come for.

  De Palma searched both rooms meticulously, but found nothing unusual apart from that book about magic. He thought of the tomes he had seen in Steinert’s office and tried to make connections, but he had to give up: he did not know enough about the occult arts to take this line of inquiry further.

  He took down the framed photograph again and studied it closely: 1942, the festival of the Tarasque, with the Nazis in attendance … But it was just a picture like thousands of others.

  All the same, Bérard had gone out of his way to tell him about that period. It had been the childhood of Steinert, the Boche’s son, as they called him after the war. William’s father had saved him from that shame, but his mother, Simone Maurel, had had her head shaved and her brother had been shot in the yard of the La Balme farmhouse.

  He replaced the photograph and stepped back. The men and women posing beside the Tarasque were staring at the camera, their smiles fixed for posterity, not realizing that they were covering themselves with shame by consorting with the enemy.

  They all seemed to belong to a single family, gathered around a ridiculous monster. One of them had placed his hand on a Nazi officer’s shoulder. Bérard was puffing out his chest.

  De Palma was sure that it was all there, in that photograph, but he was incapable of decoding it. Only Bérard could do that. The south wind pushed the black smoke of the blaze toward Les Fontaines.

  The sheep had returned to the yard and were bleating for their missing master. De Palma let them into the pen and tipped some bundles of hay into the mangers. As he closed the doors again, he realized that he was going to have to return to the scene of the fire on foot.

  On the road from Maussane to Fontvieille, several fire engines were parked end-to-end on the curb. Groups of firemen were talking, their faces running with sweat, their white hoods lowered round their necks.

  When de Palma arrived, he saw that a gendarme officer was conferring with the commandant of the brigade.

  “Good evening, Capitaine. I’m Michel de Palma from the Marseille P.J. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Have you got your papers?”

  He produced his tricolor card and brandished it under the gendarme’s nose.

  “So how can I help you?”

  �
��I just wanted to know whether you consider this to be arson or not.”

  “It was arson,” the head fireman replied. “No doubt about it.”

  The gendarme glared.

  “Look,” he said. “I want to know what you’re doing here.”

  “I’m investigating. On my personal initiative.”

  “Initiative my ass.”

  “Listen, Monsieur, I have every reason to believe that this fire is connected with a case that we are investigating. Now, you can always refuse to talk, but I’ll mention that fact in my official report. What do you say to that, Capitaine?”

  “Piss off,” the gendarme replied, and turned on his heels.

  “He’s had a hard day,” the fireman said. “He’s got his knickers in a twist.”

  The capitaine slammed the door of his 406.

  “As I just told you, this was definitely arson. A classic technique: an insecticide spiral, a wick on the end, and petrol in a container. You light it then walk away. The spiral burns down, and the fire starts several hours later.”

  “I thought so,” de Palma said. “If you find out anything else, could you give me a ring?”

  “No problem,” the fireman answered, taking the card that the Baron handed him.

  Ingrid had put her arm through Bérard’s and was walking him up and down the patio of La Balme, like a nurse.

  “How is he?” the Baron asked.

  “I’ve been expecting you for some time … I think he should be taken to hospital,” she whispered. “He seems to have lost his reason.”

  Bérard’s face was still just as listless. He looked as though he was staring into an unknown world, and had lost the spark that kept him so bright.

  “Can you hear me, M. Bérard?”

  The shepherd did not answer.

  “I’m the police officer from the other day. Do you remember me?”

  “I’m sure that he’s in a state of shock, and should be hospitalized. I called the mayor of Eygalières. He told me that Bérard has no family, and that no one there will have the time to deal with him until tomorrow.”

  “And you think it can’t wait till then?”

  “Not only think. I’m sure it can’t! And you can’t expect him to go home by himself in that condition.”